Friday NightAdvance Auto Parts Monster Jam returned to Consol Energy Center with a star studded lineup to wow the fans in Pittsburgh. Major headliners were ready to rock and excited about the track conditions for tonight’s show.

The night kicked off with the wheelie competition where Chris Bergeron came out early and launched Brutus way up in the air to take a strong early lead with an awesome 29. This made for an extremely impressive competition as everyone was trying to achieve a perfect mark. Crushtation was especially impressive scoring a 26 and Tom Meents came close in Maximum Destruction with a 27. But Bergeron held on and also held true to his promise to the fans to bring it big inside the arena.

Although Brutus took the win in the wheelie competition he would be put out of racing in round one by the reigning World Racing Champion. Meents would then easily take out El Toro Loco in the semi-finals to advance. It was a similarly easy path for Chad Tingler in Grave Digger. Tingler blew away Spike in round one before putting a tire length on Spiderman to take the win. This set up the ultimate Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam match up. Maximum Destruction versus Grave Digger. The lights dropped and the trucks had almost identical reaction times and the judges had to go to instant replay to determine that Maximum Destruction was the winner by around two feet. Meents was pumped and did a mini freestyle catching huge air and even incorporating a great save at the end. While he was pumped about the win, Meents was already pumping the crowd up for freestyle since he was eligible to take home the Double Down.

Service Is Our Best Part Freestyle started out with several smooth runs before Bergeron broke it loose a bit with Brutus. This started the ball rolling of each competitor trying to see if they could one up the other. The air kept getting bigger and more cross threading of the track was happening. But not a single competitor had yet to put together a fluid run of constant motion and action. While Grave Digger’s run was impressive and looked cool, it was lacking that fluid movement the judges were looking for. But the fluidity would be found once Maximum Destruction hit the floor. Meents went big early and kept up the intensity through the entire run. There was even a point where he found himself needing to back up to square around, but instead of doing it the conventional way, he just backed right over the crush cars and wheelied the truck backwards and then continued the run. Maximum Destructions run was non-stop and got the crowd up on their feet as the show ended and he took the coveted double down trophy of the night

Once again it was Tom Meents showing domination in Maximum Destruction taking his second double down victory of the weekend at the Advance Auto Parts Monster Jam at the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh.

The only time that Meents did not show domination was during the wheelie competition. Jeff Anderson busted loose the throttle as soon as Spike hit the car stack launching the truck up in the air. But he stayed in the throttle a little too long causing the truck to over rotate and ended up flipping it on its lid. It was a great way to start off the show and really pumped up the crowd. El Toro Loco was up next and Beck McDonough had just been dying to hit a perfect wheelie and roll it across the car stack. Her wishes came true and she wowed both the fans and the judges to earn a 29 that would blow away everyone else.

But racing and freestyle were totally all Meents. Maximum Destruction marched through the bracket to the finals with ease before taking out Spiderman in a close contest in the UTI Racing finals. Then when freestyle came around, Meents was last to go and had to witness all the carnage of the trucks before him. Spiderman and the Advance Auto Parts Grinder truck were tied for the lead when Maximum Destruction hit the floor to pump up the crowd before his run. After making a couple of laps, Meents went full throttle around the floor nonstop even rolling an extra 30 seconds after the time had expired. He was declared the winner by a single point and that was all he needed to take yet another Double Down.

Three different winners were crowned during the Advance Auto Parts Monster tonight at the Consol Energy Center as the drivers didn’t hold anything back in order to try to wow the fans.

The wheelie contest is where the unleashed driving styles started when Crushtation came out third sailing through the air over the cars and then made a huge save after a bouncy landing. While the run was amazing, the truck broke a for link bar and the crew along with crew members for Team Scream’s Brutus got right into action to try to fix the truck. Crushtation would take the win and the crew had the truck ready to go for the racing by the time the action started.

Meanwhile, while Crushtation was getting fixed, El Toro Loco had a leaky tire that had to be fixed so the crew patched it up in record time. But unfortunately for El Toro Loco and Crushtation, they were delivered losses in round one and sent packing to the pits until freestyle. Things started to get interesting in the semi-finals when Spiderman and Grave Digger lined up. Bari Musawwar had been fast all weekend edging out his opponents with his truck’s spidey quickness. So it was no surprise that the contest between Tingler and Musawwar came down to an instant replay that had to be looped through several times before the judges finally declared Spiderman the winner. It would be an almost identical situation when Spiderman faced 9 time and reigning world champion Tom Meents in Maximum Destruction in the UTI Racing Finals. It was super close, but again Spiderman came out on top and Musawwar was declared the champ.

Service is our Best Part Freestyle found another winner as Crushtation and Spiderman both had amazing runs, but there were faint in comparison to what John Seasock in the Advance Auto Parts Grinder and Tingler in Grave Digger did when they got their trucks on the floor. Both men had action packed runs but more importantly, they had the crowd rockin’ and on their feet. They would tie for the lead with only Maximum Destruction left to run. But Meents sat strapped in his truck and knew that if he was going to win, he would have to go big and get some air. The run started with a quick wheelie, but then Meents hit the huge ramp in the middle of the floor and it was non-stop throttle bopping until the truck finally stopped. Meents popped out of the truck and waited for the scores to pop his 27 making him the winner and also making one special Advance Auto Parts Monster fan a winner by getting Tom’s helmet.

Advance Auto Parts Grinder made a comeback in racing to take the victory and Tom Meents continued his freestyle domination in Maximum Destruction by cleaning sweeping the weekend with four victories.

The wheelie contest kicked off the night with intensity as El Toro Loco set the bar high scoring a 23 right out of the gate. Halfway through the pack, Brutus ripped an awesome wheelie but the truck came down hard on the right front tire causing the bolts that tie the planetary to the wheel to break. The truck was still drivable but the damage was too massive to be fixed for the rest of the show. Brutus held the lead until Maximum Destruction hit the floor as Meents was determined to go big before going home. He would edge out Brutus by one point to become the winner of the night’s first contest.

Racing brackets were completely unpredictable as some of the weekend’s toughest competitors found themselves out early. Maximum Destruction was taken out in round one by Crushtation and immediately left the building due to some mechanical problems. Upon inspection by his team, they found that the linkage was wrong and when Meents tried to shift from 1st to 2nd, the truck went into neutral instead. It was a simple fix but the 9 time world champ was heated that he was handed a loss because of a mechanical failure. Advance Auto Parts Grinder went out in round one at the hands of Spiderman but was given a chance at redemption when he was brought back as the fast loser to beat Crushtation and move on to the finals. It took Grave Digger two photo finishes to make it to the finals by edging out El Toro Loco and Spiderman. The UTI Racing Finals had to have two instant replays to determine that Advance Auto Parts Grinder would take the victory. John Seasock was pumped to take the win in his home state of Pennsylvania and was sure to point out that he was sporting the terrible towel in the truck for the weekend.

It was evident when freestyle rolled that the drivers were running on the ragged edge knowing that they would have an entire week to get their trucks back together for the next show. Crushtation took an early lead by wowing the crowd with some big air and a wicked amazing donut at the end of his run. But John Seasock in the Advance Auto Parts Grinder was going for the double down and definitely amped it up on his run. The crowd was rockin when he finished and loved it that he ripped the flag off the back of the truck and gave it to one of them. Grave Digger came out next and turned it up but couldn’t quite beat the run put up by Seasock. But Meents was still fired up about not getting to go rounds during racing and amped up the air during his run. Not only did he catch big air and launch some awesome wheelies but he even did an amazing backwards wheelie. But Maximum Destruction was a bit lucky because as soon as time ran out, the truck started to misfire before Meents shut it down. Luckily for him the run was in the books and the judges awarded him a 27 to take the win and his fourth freestyle of the weekend.